Aparna Krishnan, MD

"I was born in India but my parents and I soon immigrated to San Diego, CA, where we lived for nine years. From there, we made the (painful, as some would call) move to New Haven, Connecticut, where we lived until I moved to Baltimore to start my undergraduate education at Johns Hopkins University. My decision to apply to medical school stemmed from working in hospice care, both in India and Baltimore, and developing intimate, though sometimes brief, relationships with patients and their families. It was also during this period that I began to develop an interest in public health and global health, and began critically questioning the inequities and injustices faced by millions around the world who sought basic health care. I made the decision to defer my medical school acceptance and spent a year living in rural India and working for a community-based primary health care non-profit called the Comprehensive Rural Health Project, Jamkhed. It was there that I learned that just how far primary health care could go in improving the health and wellness of individuals and their communities. I committed to the belief that health and development are two sides of the same coin. After living among a cadre of village health workers who formed the backbone of the mini-primary health care system, I knew that I would pursue a profession which concentrates so wholeheartedly on healing patients and their families by being mindful to their stories and treating them clinically within the context of their social, cultural, religious and linguistic experiences. I returned to medical school at Johns Hopkins and found my calling within a variety of primary care initiatives and projects. Some of these were: serving as a patient navigator for newly arrived refugees with special health needs and their families, working on a community-based project with the International Rescue Committee to develop life-skills workshops for refugee families, and participating in a national Hotspotting program. I was also able to advocate for primary care exposure for medical students at Hopkins and took part in developing the medical school's first Primary Care Leadership Track. I ended up taking a nontraditional route through medical school and paused my medical education for two years, the first of which I spent in Hanoi, Vietnam conducting community-based participatory research centered on Photovoice and HIV prevention among MSM, and the second of which I earned my MPH at the Bloomberg School of Public Health. Ultimately, I could not choose any other field but Family Medicine- a field which necessitates taking a multidisciplinary and holistic approach to patient care and aims to understand community needs through compassion and longitudinal care. Like most other family medicine physicians, my interests are broad, but my primary passions include immigrant and refugee health, global health, community-based participatory research and medical education. I am thrilled to be a part of the Swedish First Hill family and join a community of family physician-advocates dedicated to social justice and individual and community health and empowerment. Furthermore, I cannot wait to work with the patients and staff at the Downtown Family Medicine clinic through King Count Dept. of Public Health. In my free time, I can be found running one of many trails through Seattle, climbing mountains, nurturing my hobby of photography or reading a book. I am excited to make Seattle and the Pacific Northwest my new home!"